After months of speculation, the U.S military has killed an American-born cleric in what is probably the clearest indication that the U.S Constitution has been set aside for another (ever-evolving) piece of paper called the Authorized Use of Military Force (AUMF). Now the military has truly become judge, jury and executioner, with the full blessing of the White House and the other branches of government behind it.

According to the most recent reports, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, and has preached in American mosques and was allegedly a spiritual inspiration to the Fort Hood Shooter and the unsuccessful Underwear Bomber, was killed in a U.S-led airstrike in Yemen. Story here:

The U.S government has spent the last year trying to convince us that it was legal to target an American citizen for termination because he was a “terrorist” and “key al Qaeda leader,” though it never bothered to give us the evidence because of course, any intelligence it had on Awlaki was “classified” and we just had to take their word for it. Plenty of smart people are pointing out today that Awlaki was hardly a significant operational threat, much less the new Osama bin Laden — though the White House was trying so hard to make him OBL’s replacement...

Crazy people might have listened to him and acted on their own impulses — much like Anders Behring Breivik liked to listen to American Islamophobe propagandists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller before he went out and killed 76 people in Norway — but we have yet to hear any evidence that he picked up a gun or planted an IED or even plotted a successful attack against the United States. Judge, jury and executioner — it doesn’t matter much to Awlaki now, but we deserve to hear the proof...MORE...LINK

It's unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists. That's just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges. As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it's going to provoke.

Nor is it surprising that much of the most vocal criticisms of the Wall Street protests has come from some self-identified progressives, who one might think would be instinctively sympathetic to the substantive message of the protesters. In an excellent analysis entitled "Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street," Kevin Gosztola chronicles how many of the most scornful criticisms have come from Democratic partisans who -- like the politicians to whom they devote their fealty -- feign populist opposition to Wall Street for political gain.

Some of this anti-protest posturing is just the all-too-familiar New-Republic-ish eagerness to prove one's own Seriousness by castigating anyone to the left of, say, Dianne Feinstein or John Kerry; for such individuals, multi-term, pro-Iraq-War Democratic Senator-plutocrats define the outermost left-wing limit of respectability. Also at play is the jingoistic notion that street protests are valid in Those Bad Countries but not in free, democratic America.

A siginificant aspect of this progressive disdain is grounded in the belief that the only valid form of political activism is support for Democratic Party candidates, and a corresponding desire to undermine anything that distracts from that goal. Indeed, the loyalists of both parties have an interest in marginalizing anything that might serve as a vehicle for activism outside of fealty to one of the two parties (Fox News' firing of Glenn Beck was almost certainly motivated by his frequent deviation from the GOP party-line orthodoxy which Fox exists to foster).

The very idea that one can effectively battle Wall Street's corruption and control by working for the Democratic Party is absurd on its face: Wall Street's favorite candidate in 2008 was Barack Obama, whose administration -- led by a Wall Street White House Chief of Staff and Wall-Street-subservient Treasury Secretary and filled to the brim with Goldman Sachs officials -- is now working hard to protect bankers from meaningful accountability (and though he's behind Wall Street's own Mitt Romney in the Wall Street cash sweepstakes this year, Obama is still doing well); one of Wall Street's most faithful servants is Chuck Schumer, the money man of the Democratic Party; and the second-ranking Senate Democrat acknowledged -- when Democrats controlled the Congress -- that the owners of Congress are bankers. There are individuals who impressively rail against the crony capitalism and corporatism that sustains Wall Street's power, but they're no match for the party apparatus that remains fully owned and controlled by it...MORE...LINK

In a court case sure to go down in history for one of the most bizarre rulings, a Wisconsin judge has held that American citizens do not have a "fundamental right to produce or consume foods of their choice." The decision was so shocking that the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund asked the judge to issue a clarification of the ruling.

The case involved people who owned cows and sought to board them at a farm. As noted by Foolocracy.com, “Although the commercial relationship between the owner of the cow and owner of the land gives cause for the state to intervene, Fiedler [took] his ruling into a more personal and troubling direction.”

The plaintiffs in the case argued that their right to privacy — which allows them to decline medical treatment, allow abortion, view pornography, and engage in consensual sex — should also translate into the right to “consume food of his/her own choice.”

Judge Patrick Fiedler remained unconvinced, claiming that the constitutionality of food rights is “wholly without merit.” He added that the plaintiffs' use of the Roe v Wade case as a precedent does “not explain why a woman’s right to have an abortion translates to a right to consume unpasteurized milk…. This court is unwilling to declare that there is a fundamental right to consume the food of one’s choice without first being presented with significantly more developed arguments on both sides of the issue.”

Judge Fiedler went on to clarify his ruling further:

1.“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;2.“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;3.“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;4.“no, the … Plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the State’s police power;5.“no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice.”...

It seems Judge Fiedler believes that food consumption is one of those rights that are not God-given but rather granted by the state.

Some analysts believe that such increased food regulations are being proposed because big agriculture fears competition from little producers, and therefore uses lobbyists to virtually eliminate small family farms that have been successful outside of the mainstream. Interestingly, those involved in large-scale agriculture are already the beneficiaries of massive government subsidies.

Evidence of federal government pressure that will affect small family farms more than large-scale agriculture can be found in recent regulations from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, an arm of the Department of Transportation. The regulations reclassify farm vehicles and implements, and require all farm workers to meet the same set of requirements that over-the-road truck drivers do. Such a regulatory burden would be felt much more significantly by small family farms than by large ones.

Regulations are beginning to have an impact on nearly every aspect of food consumption in the United States. In Oregon, for example, Multnomah County inspectors recently targeted a lemonade stand for operating without a license and threatened to fine the seven-year-old operator $500.

Likewise, the Food and Drug Administration has turned its attention to Amish milk, setting up a sting operation to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling unpasteurized milk in the Washington area.

The Obama administration signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which, as noted by the Heritage Foundation, would “authorize the FDA to dictate how farmers grow fruits and vegetables, including rules governing soil, water, hygiene, packing, temperatures, and even what animals may roam which fields and when.” The act also “increases inspections of food facilities and tax[es] them to do so … [and] grants the FDA unilateral authority to order recalls.”

Now, Fiedler’s ruling opens the door for the need for “plant police” to help enforce restrictions on the personal use and growing of vegetables...MORE...LINK

In the current racial circus, the president of the United States, in addressing an assembly of upscale black professionals and political leaders, adopts the style of a Southern Baptist preacher of the 1960s. He alters his cadences and delivery to both berate and gin up the large audience — posing as a messianic figure who will “march” them out to speak truth to power. In response, the omnipresent Rep. Maxine Waters goes public yet again, to object that the president has no right to rally blacks in this way, when he does not adopt similar tones of admonishment with Jews and gays. (Should Obama try to emulate the way he thinks gays and Jews talk in his next address to them?)

Hope-and-change has now sunk into little more than a tawdry spectacle of racial spoils, as the president of the United States desperately cobbles together squabbling special-interest racial, ethnic, and gender groups in lieu of restoring the nation’s prosperity. Before the age of Obama, I don’t recall that some members of the Black Caucus were so ready to invite political opponents to “go straight to hell,” or to allege that they were veritable murderers eager to lynch blacks and restore slavery.

Unspoken, of course, is the truth that Obama’s statism, deficits, interferences in the private sector, and spread-the-wealth rhetoric have frightened business owners into stasis — and the resulting slowdown hurts blacks most of all. But in this fantasy world of racial spoils, Obama’s profligate spending and borrowing can be faulted only for not being profligate enough. To suggest any other diagnosis would be to call into question the entire federal racial industry of the last 50 years — and those who have benefited the most by administering it...MORE...LINK-------------------

Chris Moore comments:

I notice neocon Victor Davis Hanson doesn't berate his own neocon-Zionist masters for right-wing profiteering at the public trough via the military-industrial complex or their share of the bankster bailouts. Indeed, why shouldn't Blacks conclude that the federal government is nothing but an epic racket precipitated upon a system of "to the winners go the spoils" given that the Keynesian economics to which both left-wingers and neocons subscribe declares that massive government money-printing and distribution (so called "stimulis") is at the base of their own economic theories, and it doesn't really matter where that spending takes place.

Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long been renounced for his conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which he has called "mysterious."

His latest fiery rant at the United Nations blamed the U.S. government for the 2001 attacks, and suggested the killing of Osama bin Laden was a coverup .

Now he has new detractor: al-Qaida.

It seems the terror network doesn't like someone else taking credit for its work, which its English-language magazine, Inspire, calls "The Greatest Special Operation of All Time."

An opinion piece in the latest issue takes aim at Ahmadinejad and his 9/11 conspiracy theories.

"So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?" author Abu Suhail asks, going on to accuse the Iranians of collaborating with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"For them, al-Qaida was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. Al-Qaida, an organization under fire, with no state, succeeded in what Iran couldn’t," Suhail wrote.

"Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.

"Iran and the Shiite in general do not want to give al-Qaida credit for the greatest and biggest operation ever committed against America because this would expose their lip-service jihad against the Great Satan."...LINK

At this point in the Republican race for the presidency, Texas Congressman Dr. Ron Paul has run into more of the lack of love for what the mainstream media has shown him. When Congressman Paul won or came in a close first in several of the Straw Polls, the media would focus on anything other than Paul’s wins, diminishing them and focusing on the cookie cutter candidates such as Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

The same was seen when Paul won the California Straw Poll. Had Romney or Perry won it would have been headlines. However, the media shies away and focuses on any tidbit of news from the mainstream Republicans and it is backfiring. The mainstream can’t find detrimental things to say about Dr. Paul so instead they hunt like rabid dogs for any bit of scandalous info of the top players which in effect is rapidly causing them to be less than admirable. The Republican rank and file doesn’t appear to be as stupid and sheepish as has been in the past and are looking toward alternative choices which is sending shockwaves of turmoil to the regular engines of the election process because the press isn’t use to candidates that challenge the press themselves. Reporters like George Stephanopolous of ABC is the worst. His lack of objectivity is so blatant one might not want to trust ABC anymore.

However, surprisingly CBS’ team has outdistanced it’s brethren in covering Ron Paul fairly. What the mainstream media doesn’t realize is that their coverage is being scrutinized by the public who are now more aware of the rules of journalism as more people are blogging and reporting. This will end up as probably one of the biggest sweeps in journalism and ethics in over 30 years since the days of Carl Bernstein and George Woodward...MORE...LINK

“We are seeing a level of enthusiasm for Ron Paul that can be compared with President Obama in 2008″, said Eric Brakey, Media Coordinator for NYC Liberty HQ, the grassroots organization hosting the rally for the candidate. “Congressman Paul’s youth support is different now than it was during his last presidential campaign. It’s more organized and it’s picking up steam and continues to grow”.

"As the longtime congressman from Texas stepped onto the stage, the crowd screamed with enthusiasm. The audience’s biggest reaction came when he spoke about ending the Federal Reserve. “The country has changed in the last four years, but my message hasn’t changed” Paul said. “The country is ripe for a true revolution”.

At least 75% of the American people want a full audit of the Fed, and most were against reconfirming Bernanke.

Indeed, as Bloomberg noted last December:

"A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s independent central bank, saying the U.S. Federal Reserve should either be brought under tighter political control or abolished outright, a poll shows."

***

"Americans across the political spectrum say the Fed shouldn’t retain its current structure of independence. Asked if the central bank should be more accountable to Congress, left independent or abolished entirely, 39 percent said it should be held more accountable and 16 percent that it should be abolished. Only 37 percent favor the status quo."

As I have extensively documented, the Fed is largely responsible for the economic crisis, and has failed to meet a single one of its stated mandates (let alone its implied ones).

Americans Are Sick and Tired of Never-Ending War

Ron Paul is also gaining popularity because he is against the never-ending War On Terror, and wants to bring the troops home. Americans are sick of the never-ending, ever-creeping war. See this, this and this.

As Talking Points Memo reported earlier this month:

“…Only about a quarter say the wars in Iraq (26%) and Afghanistan (25%) have lessened the chances of terrorist attacks in the United States,” the Pew report reads. “In both cases majorities say the wars either have increased the risk of terrorism in this country or made no difference.”

Top American military leaders agree, saying that the war on terror has weakened our national security.

Americans Want Our Liberties Back

Mr. Paul also speaks alot about the importance of liberty.

And Americans have become much less tolerant of the wholesale destruction of our constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism...MORE...LINK

The latest quarterly report from the Office Of the Currency Comptroller is out and as usual it presents in a crisp, clear and very much glaring format the fact that the top 4 banks in the US now account for a massively disproportionate amount of the derivative risk in the financial system. Specifically, of the $250 trillion in gross notional amount of derivative contracts outstanding (consisting of Interest Rate, FX, Equity Contracts, Commodity and CDS) among the Top 25 commercial banks (a number that swells to $333 trillion when looking at the Top 25 Bank Holding Companies), a mere 5 banks (and really 4) account for 95.9% of all derivative exposure (HSBC replaced Wells as the Top 5th bank, which at $3.9 trillion in derivative exposure is a distant place from #4 Goldman with $47.7 trillion). The top 4 banks: JPM with $78.1 trillion in exposure, Citi with $56 trillion, Bank of America with $53 trillion and Goldman with $48 trillion, account for 94.4% of total exposure. As historically has been the case, the bulk of consolidated exposure is in Interest Rate swaps ($204.6 trillion), followed by FX ($26.5TR), CDS ($15.2 trillion), and Equity and Commodity with $1.6 and $1.4 trillion, respectively. And that's your definition of Too Big To Fail right there: the biggest banks are not only getting bigger, but their risk exposure is now at a new all time high and up $5.3 trillion from Q1 as they have to risk ever more in the derivatives market to generate that incremental penny of return...MORE...LINK

MADRID — Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over...

Increasingly, citizens of all ages, but particularly the young, are rejecting conventional structures like parties and trade unions in favor of a less hierarchical, more participatory system modeled in many ways on the culture of the Web.

In that sense, the protest movements in democracies are not altogether unlike those that have rocked authoritarian governments this year, toppling longtime leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite.

The critical mass of wiki and mapping tools, video and social networking sites, the communal news wire of Twitter and the ease of donations afforded by sites like PayPal makes coalitions of like-minded individuals instantly viable.

“You’re looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds who are used to self-organizing,” said Yochai Benkler, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. “They believe life can be more participatory, more decentralized, less dependent on the traditional models of organization, either in the state or the big company. Those were the dominant ways of doing things in the industrial economy, and they aren’t anymore.”...

In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, a consensus emerged that liberal economics combined with democratic institutions represented the only path forward. That consensus, championed by scholars like Francis Fukuyama in his book “The End of History and the Last Man,” has been shaken if not broken by a seemingly endless succession of crises — the Asian financial collapse of 1997, the Internet bubble that burst in 2000, the subprime crisis of 2007-8 and the continuing European and American debt crisis — and the seeming inability of policy makers to deal with them or cushion their people from the shocks.

Frustrated voters are not agitating for a dictator to take over. But they say they do not know where to turn at a time when political choices of the cold war era seem hollow. “Even when capitalism fell into its worst crisis since the 1920s there was no viable alternative vision,” said the British left-wing author Owen Jones...

Responding to shifts in voter needs is supposed to be democracy’s strength. These emerging movements, like many in the past, could end up being absorbed by traditional political parties, just as the Republican Party in the United States is seeking to benefit from the anti-establishment sentiment of Tea Party loyalists. Yet purists involved in many of the movements say they intend to avoid the old political channels.

The political left, which might seem the natural destination for the nascent movements now emerging around the globe, is compromised in the eyes of activists by the neoliberal centrism of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The old left remains wedded to trade unions even as they represent a smaller and smaller share of the work force. More recently, center-left participation in bailouts for financial institutions alienated former supporters who say the money should have gone to people instead of banks.

The entrenched political players of the post-cold-war old guard are struggling. In Japan, six prime ministers have stepped down in five years, as political paralysis deepens. The two major parties in Germany, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, have seen tremendous declines in membership as the Greens have made major gains, while Chancellor Angela Merkel has watched her authority erode over unpopular bailouts.

In many European countries the disappointment is twofold: in heavily indebted federal governments pulling back from social spending and in a European Union viewed as distant and undemocratic. Europeans leaders have dictated harsh austerity measures in the name of stability for the euro, the region’s common currency, rubber-stamped by captive and corrupt national politicians, protesters say.

“The biggest crisis is a crisis of legitimacy,” Ms. Solanas said. “We don’t think they are doing anything for us.”...MORE...LINK

There could be no better proof of the revolution – care of the internet – occurring in the accessibility of information and informed commentary than the reaction of our mainstream, corporate media.

For the first time, Western publics – or at least those who can afford a computer – have a way to bypass the gatekeepers of our democracies. Data our leaders once kept tightly under wraps can now be easily searched for, as can the analyses of those not paid to turn a blind eye to the constant and compelling evidence of Western hypocrisy. Wikileaks, in particular, has rapidly eroded the traditional hierarchical systems of information dissemination.

The media – at least the supposedly leftwing component of it – should be cheering on this revolution, if not directly enabling it. And yet, mostly they are trying to co-opt, tame or subvert it. Indeed, progressive broadcasters and writers increasingly use their platforms in the mainstream to discredit and ridicule the harbingers of the new age.

A good case study is The Guardian, considered the most leftwing newspaper in Britain and rapidly acquiring cult status in the United States, where many readers tend to assume they are getting access through its pages to unvarnished truth and the full range of critical thinking on the left.

Certainly, The Guardian includes some fine reporting and occasionally insightful commentary. Possibly because it is farther from the heart of empire, it is able to provide a partial antidote to the craven coverage of the corporate-owned media in the US.

Nonetheless, it would be unwise to believe that the Guardian is therefore a free market in progressive or dissident ideas on the left. In fact, quite the contrary: the paper strictly polices what can be said and who can say it in its pages, for cynical reasons we shall come to.

Until recently, it was quite possible for readers to be blissfully unaware that there were interesting or provocative writers and thinkers who were never mentioned in the Guardian. And, before papers had online versions, the Guardian could always blame space constraints as grounds for not including a wider range of voices. That, of course, changed with the rise of the internet.

Early on, the Guardian saw the potential, as well as the threat, posed by this revolution. It responded by creating a seemingly free-for-all blog called Comment is Free to harness much of the raw energy unleashed by the internet. It recruited an army of mostly unpaid writers, activists and propagandists on both sides of the Atlantic to help brand itself as the epitome of democratic and pluralistic media.

From the start, however, Comment is Free was never quite as free – except in terms of the financial cost to the Guardian – as it appeared. Significant writers on the left, particularly those who were considered “beyond the pale” in the old media landscape, were denied access to this new “democratic” platform. Others, myself included, quickly found there were severe and seemingly inexplicable limits on what could be said on CiF (unrelated to issues of taste or libel).

None of this should matter. After all, there are many more places than CiF to publish and gain an audience. All over the web dissident writers are offering alternative analyses of current events, and drawing attention to the significance of information often ignored or sidelined by the corporate media.

Rather than relish this competition, or resign itself to the emergence of real media pluralism, however, the Guardian reverted to type. It again became the left’s thought police.

This time, however, it could not ensure that the “challenging left” would simply go unheard. The internet rules out the option of silencing by exclusion. So instead, it appears, it is using its pages to smear those writers who, through their own provocative ideas and analyses, suggest the Guardian’s tameness...

A typical example of the Guardian’s new strategy was on show this week in an article in the print edition’s comment pages – also available online and a far more prestigious platform than CiF – in which the paper commissioned a socialist writer, Andy Newman, to argue that the Israeli Jewish musician Gilad Atzmon was part of an anti-semitic trend discernible on the left.

Jonathan Freedland, the paper’s star columnist and resident obsessive on anti-semitism, tweeted to his followers that the article was “important” because it was “urging the left to confront antisemitism in its ranks”.

I have no idea whether Atzmon has expressed anti-semitic views – and I am none the wiser after reading Newman’s piece.

As is now typical in this new kind of Guardian character assassination, the article makes no effort to prove that Atzmon is anti-semitic or to show that there is any topical or pressing reason to bring up his presumed character flaw. (In passing, the article made a similar accusation of anti-semitism against Alison Weir of If Americans Knew, and against the Counterpunch website for publishing an article by her on Israel’s role in organ-trafficking.)

Atzmon has just published a book on Jewish identity, the Wandering Who?, that has garnered praise from respected figures such as Richard Falk, an emeritus law professor at Princeton, and John Mearsheimer, a distinguished politics professor at Chicago University.

But Newman did not critique the book, nor did he quote from it. In fact, he showed no indication that he had read the book or knew anything about its contents.

Instead Newman began his piece, after praising Atzmon’s musicianship, with an assumptive reference to his “antisemitic writings”. There followed a few old quotes from Atzmon, long enough to be intriguing but too short and out of context to prove his anti-semitism – except presumably to the Guardian’s thought police and its most deferential readers...MORE...LINK

An audit of the Federal Reserve has revealed that the privately owned Federal Reserve secretly doled out more than $16 trillion in zero interest loans to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world. The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed acted illegally. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to its employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans. The report is evidence that reveals major securities fraud in the embezzlement of $16 trillion by the Federal Reserve.

$16 trillion is 10 times more than what the U.S. Congress authorized and Bush ($700 billion) and Obama ( $787 billion) signed off on. The Federal Reserve was only authorized by Congress to use $1.487 trillion in federal tax dollars in bailouts. The Federal Reserve embezzled another $14.5 trillion.

The Congressional report determined that the Fed secretly hide most of the embezzled money into their own banks. The rest the Fed unilaterally transfered trillions of dollars to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland. Foreign banks and corporations which the Federal Reserve bankers had a personal financial interest or stake in.

The report reveals that the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed’s board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in federal money from the Fed – conflict of interest. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks (money laundering banks) for the Fed’s emergency loans programs (aka – embezzlement schemes)...MORE...LINK

I wasn't aware of this, but apparently the damn hypocrite members of Congress are exempt from insider trading laws, when they vote on legislation that will impact their portfolio and as a result of knowledge they gain from their Congressional activities. Nice that the bastards have exempted themselves.

Valerie Richardson at the Washington Times reports:

Strict laws ban corporate executives from trading on their insider knowledge, but no restrictions exist for members of Congress. Lawmakers are permitted to keep their holdings and trade shares on the market, as well as vote on legislation that could affect their portfolio values.

Not surprisingly, the data suggest that Congressmen are using this insider edge to profit. Here's Richardson again:

It’s no secret that members of Congress qualify as political insiders, but a new report strongly suggests that they also may be insiders when it comes to trading stocks.

An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 [sic] percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.

“We find strong evidence that members of the House have some type of non-public information which they use for personal gain,” according to four academics who authored the study, “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

To the frustration of open-government advocates, lawmakers and their staff members largely have immunity from laws barring trading on insider knowledge that have sent many a private corporate chieftain to prison.

It should be noted that this study only took into account trading that has been disclosed. I suspect that the more egregious trading is done in a manner which is not reported...MORE...LINK

A new Harris Interactive poll released today reveals that Congressman Ron Paul would defeat Barack Obama 51-49 in a hypothetical run off, one of only two Republican candidates who would stand a good chance of preventing Obama from securing a second term in the White House.

Only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney would beat Obama, according to the poll, which found that Obama would defeat every other Republican candidate, including Rick Perry.

The survey is another indication that Paul is quickly moving into second place to become Romney’s main challenger as Rick Perry’s campaign crashes and burns.

The poll was conducted in mid-September and surveyed 2,462 US adults. Its findings reveal that Paul has now overturned Obama’s slim majority in a hypothetical run off between the two and would likely beat him, especially if he was afforded the kind of national platform that the corporate press have been loathe to provide...

Ron Paul told a packed out audience in New York City last night that America was “ripe for a true revolution,” during his appearance Grand Ballroom, after the overwhelming number of attendees caused the event to be moved to a larger venue.

“We are seeing a level of enthusiasm for Ron Paul that can be compared with President Obama in 2008,” Eric Brakey, Media Coordinator for NYC Liberty HQ told CNN. “Congressman Paul’s youth support is different now than it was during his last presidential campaign. It’s more organized and it’s picking up steam and continues to grow”.

“The country has changed in the last four years, but my message hasn’t changed,” Paul said. “The country is ripe for a true revolution”...MORE...LINK-----------------------

A new Gallup poll found a record-breaking 81 percent of Americans dissatisfied with the U.S. government’s performance, as the economy remains stagnant and the country’s fiscal integrity wanes. The polling company noted:

Americans’ various ratings of political leadership in Washington add up to a profoundly negative review of government — something that would seem unhealthy for the country to endure for an extended period.

Nevertheless, with another budget showdown looking inevitable and a contentious presidential election year getting underway, it appears the ratings reviewed here could get worse before they improve.

A relatively new trend, American discontent with the way Congress and the White House govern, has significantly deepened. In 2003, 59 percent of Americans approved of the federal government’s overall performance, while only 39 percent disapproved. An analysis of the past few years presents an upward curve in dissatisfaction with the federal government, particularly as war in the Middle East endures and as the U.S. economy remains stale.

The Democrat-led Senate — and until 2010, the Democrat-led House — as well as the Obama administration’s government-intrusive economic policies, have left 92 percent of Republicans dissatisfied with the U.S. government’s performance, while an astounding 65 percent of Democrats are now reported dissatisfied. Gallup notes that a vital source for the American people’s governmental discontent stems from Congress, as 82 percent of those polled said they disapprove of the way Congress is dealing with today’s economic and international problems. Only 47 percent said they had confidence in the executive branch, while 69 percent of those surveyed said they had "little" or "no" confidence in the legislative branch.

Gallup’s findings reflected poorly for both elected officials and those planning to run for office, as only 45 percent expressed confidence in the "men and women in political life in this country who either hold or are running for public office."

Another Gallup poll, released last week, reported that Americans believe the federal government wastes 51 cents of every dollar it spends, the highest number since the question was first posed in 1979. The poll revealed that Americans are overwhelmingly more suspect of the federal government than state and local governments, as the state estimate held at 42 cents on every dollar and the local estimate at 38 cents...MORE...LINK

Two weeks ago, the media's heart went aflutter when it learned that the president had borrowed a page right out of ole' Joe McCarthy's communist witch hunt book with the launch of Attack Watch. The response by everyone, even fans of Obama, was immediate and brutal. Yet where Obama took about 24 hours to crash and burn, someone else has stepped in with a far stealthier method of ferreting out the traitors amongst us: none other than our old friends, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, which in a Request for Proposals filed to companies that are Fed vendors, is requesting the creation of a "Social Listening Platform" whose function is to "gather data from various social media outlets and news sources." It will "monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria." The Fed's desired product should be able to "determine the sentiment [ED:LOL] of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document"... "The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc." Most importantly, the "Listening Platform" should be able to "Handle crisis situations, Continuously monitor conversations, and Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers." Said otherwise, the Fed has just entered the counterespionage era and will be monitoring everything written about it anywhere in the world. After all, why ask others to snitch for you and anger everyone as Obama found out the hard way, when you can pay others to create the supreme FIATtack WatchTM using money you yourself can print in unlimited amounts. And once the Internet is completely "transparent", the Fed will next focus on telephone conversations, and finally will simply bug each and every otherwise "private" location in the world. Because very soon saying that "printing money is treason" will be treason, and such terrorist thoughts must be pre-crimed before they even occur...MORE...LINK------------------------Big Brother and Ben Bernanke are monitoring you for fiat currency thought crimes

In a political season marked by warfare between Democrats and Republicans, the White House and Congress, haves and have-nots, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has built staunch support among voters who are furious at the federal government — from emo-kids to retirees.

But in Thursday’s debate, as candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry tore into each other, Mr. Paul showed once more that he isn’t particularly upset with, or allied with, anyone. This week, the Texas congressman said he seldom even mentions President Barack Obama, though he’s picking up support from some of Mr. Obama’s disillusioned backers.

Mr. Paul says he doesn’t mind that Texas Gov. Perry has borrowed from Mr. Paul’s anti-Federal Reserve platform. “That’s how politicians operate, they reflect people’s views,” the Texas congressman said. Nor was he offended, like some supporters were, when Mr. Perry grabbed Mr. Paul in a killer arm-grip after one of the last debates: “That’s just him, every time he sees you, he grabs you…friendly.”

Unlike most candidates this season, Mr. Paul isn’t targeting the media, which routinely ignore him despite his third-place ranking in the polls: “I don’t take it personally…I think a lot of people don’t understand what I’m talking about…that’s what I work on the most, trying to refine my message.”

So what does frost the 76 year-old former obstetrician? Any suggestion that his position–he’s for a highly limited government, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and an overhaul of the federal monetary system—isn’t politically practical.

“If you give up on your principles I don’t think that’s being pragmatic,” says Mr. Paul, whose support ranges from 9% to 13% in recent polls. “Doing the wrong thing, even partially, isn’t being practical…if you have the right ideas and are forceful enough…I think you can get the support you need.”...MORE...LINK

We know the Judeofascists have a stranglehold on the Democratic Party, and are forcing it to back Israel and wars for Israel unconditionally time and again, and that Democrats don’t want the Judeofascist role in 9/11 disclosed because that implicates their entire party in treason, as well.

We know even well-intended leftists like Alexander Cockburn and Ted Rall are bent on sweeping the 9/11 treason under the carpet because they don’t want to destroy the American people’s faith in Big Government per their own utopian, socialist pipe dreams.

We know that the deal between the statist-left and statist-right is that the right-wingers facilitate and manage the warfare state through “national security” demagoguery, and the left-wingers facilitate and manage the welfare state through “human rights” and “social justice” demagoguery, and that both sides together, in a dysfunctional yet jointly-serving relationship, rob, plunder and bomb those outside of their collaboration in evil with impunity.

We know that just like the Judeofascists, the banksters, via the Jewish-dominated Fed, play both sides against the middle, and will continue to plunder the American people’s hard-earned dollars and credit until the country goes bankrupt because they can, and because they use the fiat currency that they control to buy off the corrupt and treasonous politicians of the two-party regime.

We know all of this, in very small part, because I have painstakingly proven it over the years by piecing together my own work and the work of others like me who realized there was something rotten at the core of American politics, something rotten at the core of organized Jewry, something rotten at the core of ideological right-wingers, and something rotten at the core of ideological left-wingers. I have done this on LibertarianToday.com for nearly 10 years (starting one month after the inside job terrorist attacks of 9/11) and Judeofascism.com for over five years.

Now, with the Ron Paul movement gaining more traction than ever right along with gains by the paleocon-libertarian-Right, the centrist and patriotic freedom movement and tea party movement, and anti-statist factions of (authentic) liberalism, there is at least a sliver of hope for resistance.

This, in conjunction with the crashing economy that’s a consequence of wars, increasing regulatory and "Homeland Security" totalitarianism, and corrupt politicians selling the country out to Globalism, has made the status-quo more untenable than ever, and we all can feel it.

I’m not saying that leviathan is going to crash tomorrow, or even that Ron Paul is going to win the presidential election (although I’m more hopeful than ever). But what I am saying is that we are in an epochal moment of history, and that this conjunction of 9/11 treason, corrupt Zionism, two party-regime treachery, ceaseless warmongering, all-consuming government, and the crashing economy have formed an historic opportunity to truncate leviathan's evil reign of terror, if only we can "seize the day."

***

I put out an appeal for funds recently, and was rewarded with donations from a handful of generous souls (thank you Todd, Mal, Alex, Bret, Eric, Kris, Liz, Evan, Jill) one of whom wrote the following:

"I believe in what you are doing, Chris. My guess is that your opinions are not good for your career, and I appreciate people like you who go out on a limb for such an important issue. Keep up the good work."

Sadly, it's true that I'm out there on a limb, and that limb is neither a lucrative nor safe place to be, but I feel I have no other choice, and my regular readers will know why I feel this way.

This is why I need more people to give now and give regularly, and I need those who can afford to give in the higher dollar range to do so.

Give because you know I'm not a scam artist, because you know I will call it like I see it come hell or high water, and because people like you need to make it viable for people like me to keep telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in order to help put an end to the insanity that is consuming this country.

Without you, I don't eat, and if I can't eat, we can all kiss anymore truth-telling I have to offer goodbye.

***

This evil that confronts not just me, but all of us, isn’t going to go down without a fight, and the historical opportunity might be lost unless leviathan can somehow be hastened into its long overdue grave (by myself and the thousands of others like me toiling away in relative obscurity and poverty) instead of being allowed to hold on for decades (until the country is all but destroyed and your dollars are all but worthless anyway), as did the Soviet Union.

Unless leviathan is somehow truncated sooner rather than later, you’ll be papering the walls in whatever abode you yourself are allowed by the regime with worthless dollar bills.

Again, please donate as much and as regularly as you can, so we can all help dispatch evil leviathan straight into hell where it belongs before it does more damage to the country, its future, your future, and the future of the young that are being given no say whatsover about the hell being created by our evil, criminally negligent, and treasonous two-party regime elites.

Sincerely,

Chris Moore

PS: Please click on the PayPal “Donate” button on the upper right corner of the homepage. The donation will appear on your statement as to “Chris Moore, editor”

The speech Barack Hussein Obama gave before the UN General Assembly aimed to assure the world that the Atlantic Empire was still the world’s hegemon, strong as ever, and committed to persevere in the historical mission of ridding the world of things that weren’t nice. While meant to sound inspirational and even triumphant at times, it came off more as an attempt at self-reassurance, a plea to the world to ignore the observable reality and continue to accept the myth of Imperial omnipotence.

Meaningless Peace

Almost at the start, Obama began making excuses. He inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, but is about to end them "from a position of strength." Those who have to say they are strong usually are not. And though he claimed both countries will soon enjoy a "normal relationship" with the U.S. as "sovereign nations," Obama promised an "equal partnership" with Iraq and "enduring partnership" with the Afghan people – meaning that in practice, they won’t be rid of U.S. garrisons, drones, spies and bribes just yet, and maybe not ever.

So, in Empire-speak, "sovereignty" is entirely meaningless, and "partnership" means taking orders without question. File that for future reference.

The False Spring

The "tide of war is receding," Obama proclaimed. Al-Qaeda had been "degraded" and Osama bin Laden is dead. Freedom is erupting all over the world, with the "help" of Empire and its allies. In Obama’s narrative, everything is part of the inevitable historical march of "equality", from the civil wars in Ivory Coast and Libya to the "revolutions" in Tunisia and Egypt.

Never mind that the situation in Ivory Coast was not quite as simple, or that the popular revolts in north Africa all seem to have been at least partly driven by Imperial agents. Never mind that the UN authorized a no-fly zone in Libya, not a six-month bombing campaign and "regime change". Forget about the Shariah Democrats or whatever the Al-Qaeda in Libya calls itself now, having been installed in power by NATO. When facts come up against the narrative, the facts lose.

Notice also the different standards for different places. The Empire wants governments in Syria and Yemen gone, so they are told to surrender to the protesters – or else. Yet in Bahrain, a major US naval base, the Empire prefers "a meaningful dialogue that brings peaceful change that is responsive to the people" and believes " the patriotism that binds Bahrainis together must be more powerful than the sectarian forces that would tear them apart."

It’s Always 1938 in Washington

When all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Having chosen to cast itself as the preventer and punisher of genocide anywhere it may happen, the Empire proceeded to find genocides everywhere. Somewhere in the world, there is always a Hitler that needs stopping. Anything else would be appeasement, no?

Obama did not use the g-word, but he did wax euphemistic that the Libyan rebels were "threatened by the kind of mass atrocity that often went unchallenged in the last century." What else was the U.S. to do but bomb for peace?

Ironic, then, that he chose to emphasize how the Libyan "liberation" was a triumph of the will ("the will of the coalition proved unbreakable"). Freudian slip? You decide.

The biggest dollop of hypocrisy was surely the claim that Libya represented a shining example for the future:

"This is how the international community is supposed to work — nations standing together for the sake of peace and security, and individuals claiming their rights."

Really? So it wasn’t really a clandestine operation gone horribly wrong, which had to be bailed out by a "kinetic military action" of bombers and special forces on the ground? Not an evil little war that was all about regime change and not in the least about the purported humanitarian concerns? Not a complete mockery of the UN? Well, then, if Obama says so, it must be true...MORE...LINK

Israel’s submarine fleet is by far the most secretive of its strategic long-range manned arsenals. Unlike the Jewish state’s other seafaring crafts, these submersibles never dock in any ports except their own, and their missions are such highly guarded secrets that only a few, even on board, are privy to what their assignment is and where it will next take them.

“Nobody knows where you are except for your crew and your direct commanders,” said a former “Lt. Col. Oded” in a recent interview with Israel’s Ynet news service. “Even your family doesn’t know. They don’t know what you’re doing or when you’ll be back. They know nothing.”

Oded says he served 20 years in the Israeli navy and was commander of the Leviathan, one of two state-of-the-art 800-class Dolphin submarines that were donated to Israel by the German government. The Israelis later bought a third Dolphin for $350 million under an agreement in which German taxpayers would absorb 50 percent of the cost.

Though the whereabouts of these mobile doomsday machines are generally kept under wraps, the Israelis occasionally make their presence known. When that happens, the message is clear that they mean business and are prepared to strike at any given moment. That’s precisely what happened in July 2009 when Israel sent one of its Dolphins on a high-profile cruise of the Suez Canal. Although the official line out of Israel was that they were merely conducting standard naval drills, it was clear to all that the real purpose of their presence was to flaunt their strategic reach in Iran’s face.

In June 2010, all three of Israel’s Dolphins arrived off the coast of the vilified Persian nation. The Sunday Times reported, “The submarines of Flotilla 7—Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan—[were] sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organization in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.”

The article added, “The deployment is designed to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents.”

It’s widely believed that these three submarines are often rotated, with only one maintaining a constant vigil in the region for any extended period.

According to a recent UPI article, “Five Dolphins is considered the minimum number required to keep two boats on patrol off Iran at all times.”

That’s why, to bring the fleet up to their desired quota, two more Dolphins are being constructed for Israel under a deal reached in 2006 whereby the German government agreed to absorb one-third of a total $1.27 billion price tag.

In July 2011, a deal was finalized for a sixth Dolphin submarine that will again be subsidized by Germany under the same arrangement. According to Der Spiegel, the subsidy was being offered to Israel as part of reparations for the “Holocaust.” The first of the three is slated for delivery to Israel by 2012.

Unlike Iran, Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has illicitly pursued a weapons program that, by some estimates, has put more than 600 nuclear-tipped warheads at its disposal...LINK

Can Democrats support war without getting shot down in a hail of flak by the media and progressives? That question has proven to be a thorny issue, but more evidence keeps accumulating to suggest that this is indeed the case. One example surfaced in the Monterey Peninsula area of California this month.

Libertarians for Peace, a member of the Peace Coalition of Monterey County, introduced the "Give it Back Resolution" in September 2011. It called upon President Obama to return his Nobel Peace Prize because his foreign policies have "continued old wars and engaged in new ones." It was a simple and clear one-sentence resolution, but few took it that way.

In the last few years, the dirty secret behind the peace movement is the emergence of a double standard regarding which political party can conduct foreign wars of aggression. For a number of reasons, it appears that Democratic Presidents can go to war, escalate troop strength, engage in torture, rendition, illegal wiretapping or harassment of whistleblowers and so forth, but Republican Presidents can’t employ the same policies. The "Give it Back Resolution" brought this controversy to the forefront.

When the resolution was first presented, a murmur of support rippled through the air. Many of the members seemed pleased over such a resolution. But within days of its submission, the chairperson of the Peace Coalition began to show his true colors. He objected to the resolution, arguing that it would be "demeaning" to the President and "frivolous."

Of course, nobody in the Peace Coalition would have opposed this resolution if President Bush had been the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, I would wager that almost everybody in the peace movement would have lined up to sign a petition demanding that Bush give back any peace award immediately. That is a given. But do most peace activists have an unbiased eye when becoming involved in party politics? Do they favor "principle over party," or do they play favorites and look the other way when Obama acts like Bush on steroids? I was almost afraid to ask that question...

And the results: disappointing. Not a single peace organization attending the meeting gave a thumbs-up recommendation. There was no vote. The Veterans for Peace and Green Party immediately came out against it. The National Lawyers Guild said that they might agree to it if some minor wording changes were made. The local Quaker organization abstained. The other peace group leaders just sat silently and watched. The resolution never had a chance.

In retrospect, I suppose I was testing the Peace Coalition to see if my suspicions were correct. I had heard a number of complaints that the Peace Coalition had a strong bias towards the Democratic Party. Since the election of President Obama, the coalition had only sponsored three peace rallies compared to a dozen or more during the Bush administration. Of the three antiwar rallies sponsored, two were spearheaded by Libertarians for Peace. I had to take charge of one because nobody else would volunteer. As this lack of activity became more apparent, some of the more libertarian peace activists began to wonder if the local Peace Coalition was actually putting "party before principles," worried that if antiwar leaders protested too loudly against President Obama’s administration, he might lose reelection.

After the failure of my resolution became apparent, the chairperson told me to contact each organization separately, and try to convince them of my resolution’s merit. I asked for a roll call vote so as to have an official record of who favored or opposed the resolution — since a number of members had remained silent. That request was denied. I had a feeling that the chairman wanted no record of who opposed the resolution since it might someday become an embarrassment.

It was now apparent that many of the Peace Coalition members were willing to let President Obama get away with whatever pro-war policies he wanted to pursue...MORE...LINK

The important aspect to remember is that the same forces that have been waging a war against Christianity and Western civilization in the West for decades are also behind this war on Islam.

Most of these are perverts, psychopaths, money-worshippers and schizos who get no satisfaction out of life through normal outlets, and require deviance, sadism, bullying and perversion to get any satisfaction or joy out of life. Why? Because they are defectives...sociopaths.

According to statistics, four percent of all human beings are sociopaths, so if that four percent was to be put in cages (or ghettoized in Israel) all of this insanity could be brought to an end nearly full stop in a very short period of time.

But how to identify the sociopaths? Well, they generally rally around zionism, money, and power, so let's just start at the top and work our way down until we come across someone who isn't insane, and then we can start being a bit more discriminatory.

My hunch is that nearly the entire power elite will have to be decapitated before we finally get to someone with a modicum of sanity, perhaps around the shoulder or chest area, at which point we can perhaps employ brain scan technology to the remainder. It is my understanding that such technology is now available, and capable of identifying those with a predisposition towards sociopathy.

One of the major tasks currently facing Russia’s authorities and its political class is to reestablish public opinion as a potent factor of real-life politics, not the marginalized, secluded domain of web-based debates it is now.

Russian authorities are finally beginning to react to the public opinion as expressed via the internet, but it is important that the government learns to be proactive in dealing with the web-based public rather than keep playing batter to its pitches, scrambling to respond whenever there is another scandalous exposure publicized, or another protest orchestrated through the internet. Therefore, the Number One task for the Russian patriotic movement at the moment is to get out of the internet “ghetto” and onto the real-life political scene.

Secondly, the patriotic movement must rethink itself as a pro-constitution party whose main demand would be for the provision of de facto equal rights to all citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnic background, religion and place of residence.

All citizens shall be equal both in terms of their civil and economic rights and in terms of their legal liabilities. Russians must eventually learn to be thrifty with their national budget and aim to secure their own national interests in the first place.

Indeed, Russians genuinely need to become a self-serving nation and focus on increasing their birth rate, ensuring decent living standards for the elderly, bring our domestic affairs in order, and coming to terms with the neighboring nations, as well as with other ethnic groups inside Russia.

We need to become thrifty, rational and hard working, and learn to put our own interests as a nation first. We should also strengthen our nation by integrating the most promising and efficient human resources, and by keeping at bay those who are of no use for our country, or even represent a threat to our society.

By no means should we stop committing financial resources to modernizing Russia’s provinces, including the non-Russian republics within the Federation. At the same time, the people in those republics should realize that federal subsidies are not some homage they are entitled to by virtue of being dangerous: it is rather Russia’s investment, and the Federation expects to have a return on the investment at some point in the future, both in terms of economic revenues, political benefits, etc.

Every subsidy beneficiary must know exactly how much money the Federation spends on them, and realize that they owe some respect for the nation that supports their living. They must also be aware that they are expected to contribute to the general wellbeing of the country in return for the subsidies, and deliver their money’s worth.

It’s no secret that certain regions within the Russian Federation, primarily the republics of the North Caucasus – including Chechnya – are receiving six times more than the rest of Russia in federal subsidies per capita, and yet they take it for granted and turn their relation with the Federation into a one-way street.

What we deal with here is perverse, counter-productive economic policies which have effectively turned the Federation into a tributary to the people that once claimed to be “colonized” by Russians. Such a situation is not only unfair and detrimental for the Russian majority, but also for people of other ethnic groups that are faced with such inequality.

Therefore, our first demand as a party is genuine, de facto equality and justice for all ethnic groups within the Federation, including ethnic Russians. Such equality must rely on mutual respect.

Culture is a critically important factor of national unity. The present agony of Europe faced with the onslaught of immigrants provides us with a case study on how ethnic minorities are only inclined to integrate into a robust, dominant culture, and generally tend to disregard emasculated, self-deprecating host societies with their do-gooder reverence for tolerance and diversity.

How can we win their respect as a host community if we fail to respect ourselves, if we give up on defending our culture and our history, if we tolerate the degradation of our national television and cinema production, who have unapologetically discarded their task of educating and inspiring the masses for the best, and chosen to cater to the basest tastes?

Culture is similar to international affairs in that it abhors a vacuum: unless a host society maintains its culture, it quickly descends into ignorance and vulgarity, and that just can’t win you any respect. The Russian culture with its classical heritage can provide the essential environment for integrating both immigrants and local ethnic minorities into the Russian nation. And the Russian language equals influence – something you should fight to protect if you have to.

France, Belgium and Switzerland have recently mustered enough guts to demand respect for their ways of life and their codes of behavior from immigrants. Their newly-adopted laws urge the Muslim minorities to abide by the rules of the secular host states, and reserve their religious practices to their places of worship, without turning outdoor religious festivities into deliberate shows of force to intimidate the locals.

Why should any Russian city tolerate being turned into a backwater hamlet by some of its most recent residents?

One thing to remember is that if Russia’s cities are to preserve their cultural identity, they must reclaim their past role as the strongholds of Russian culture.

If you come to Rome and try entering the Vatican wearing shorts, you will be denied entry. If a female tourist visiting a Muslim theocracy dares walk the street in a sleeveless shirt and with no headscarf, she risks being stoned to death. So why can’t the Russians demand that their guests respect the Russian culture, local traditions and way of life?

The demands I’m advocating for Russia are but a wan shadow of the requirements recently imposed by the tolerant Europeans. Therefore, if Russia’s liberals still regard Europe as the perfect role model for democratic development, they ought to back my agenda wholeheartedly.

Democracy is not solely about protecting the rights of minorities, because in fact, the majority has a few rights too. That doesn’t only mean ethnic Russians: in a multiethnic and diverse country such as Russia, the “majority” stands for any local community, any indigenous ethnic group and any committed citizen who feels part of this nation.

I’d like to urge all Russian patriots to steer clear of extremist tactics and rhetoric in their campaigning. That said, we must keep exerting persistent pressure on the government, as well as use every opportunity to influence public opinion in order to promote our agenda. For once, the laws of this country must be applied to serve the interests of the very people that essentially make up our nation.

There is no point in sacrificing our own party activists to be tried and jailed by Russia’s rigged judiciary on the false charges of extremism and xenophobia. What we should do instead is win the hearts and minds of the public, and shape a new public morality that would legitimize and promote intolerance against any instances of Russophobia, as well as any attempts at undermining Russia’s unity and integrity.

We must also seek to attract government officials and decision makers to our ranks wherever possible in order to form an influential Russia lobby within our country’s political establishment. It’s time for us to aim for high-ranking positions in the government in order to have a say in making the strategic decisions that will define the future of Russia.

This world only respects the truth when it’s backed by power, so we’ll have to become the power to promote our cause.

It’s a shame Russia’s patriotic movement has no political party of its own today. But now is the time to correct past mistakes...MORE...LINK

President Obama lavished praise on the United Nations and its controversial military interventions during his September 21 address to the UN General Assembly, promoting big-government policies and even more international “cooperation” on everything from protests in Syria and the global economic crisis to healthcare, climate, and poverty.

Throughout the speech to world rulers assembled in New York, Obama barely mentioned traditional American notions of liberty and individual rights. Instead, he spent most of his time boasting about military operations and advocating expanded government power at the national and international level.

Obama demanded, for example, that all governments submit to the socialist principle that “freedom from want is a basic human right.” He also expressed support for “gay rights” and the UN’s universal declaration of human “rights” — more accurately described as a list of revocable privileges granted by the state...

Obama called on governments to promote gay rights and women’s rights, too. “No country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere,” Obama said, noting that the U.S. government had just signed another new agreement on “women’s participation” calling for affirmative action and sustainable development. “That is what our commitment to human progress demands.”

According to Obama, fighting poverty also requires government solutions and global action — not free markets, the time-tested engine of prosperity. “To combat the poverty that punishes our children, we must act on the belief that freedom from want is a basic human right,” he claimed, calling on world rulers to continue spending taxpayer money on aid programs that analysts say increase poverty. “Our common humanity is at stake.”

While inaccurately portraying recent military interventions in countries such as Libya and the Ivory Coast as successes that had proper justifications, Obama also suggested more multilateral wars to enforce UN dictates if needed. Syria and Iran were among the potential targets he listed.

“The question for us is clear: Will we stand with the Syrian people, or with their oppressors?” he said, calling on the UN Security Council to act. “We must speak with one voice. There is no excuse for inaction.”...

Claiming that the world body helped avert a third World War, Obama called on the rulers in attendance to return to the “wisdom” of the UN’s founders. In his book War or Peace, John Foster Dulles, a key architect of the global body, offered some insight into the real vision of those founders.

Dulles noted that the UN of the 1940s was “not a final stage in the development of world order,” but a stepping stone in that direction. Its primary task, he wrote, was to create the conditions to advance a more "highly developed" organization. "Then, perhaps, a world police force could work," he explained.

Many other key American delegates who helped craft the institution and its charter — Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Irving Kaplan, and others — were later exposed as communist agents. But experts generally agree that the main goal of most UN founders was to promote global governance at the expense of national sovereignty...MORE...LINK

Across Europe, faith in the European Project is eroding. Even in Germany, for decades the powerhouse of EU integration, more than 70 percent of the public have "little", "low" or "no confidence" in the single currency according to a recent Allensbach Institute poll. The European financial crisis has been a painful shattering of illusions for Eurofederalists from Paris and Berlin to Rome and Madrid, and across the continent Euroscepticism is on the rise.

But in the United States left-wing elites continue to cling to the idea of a European superstate and the holy grail of ever-closer union within the EU. In fact some of the most zealous support for European fiscal and political integration anywhere in the world can be found in Washington and New York. And nowhere is this misguided thinking stronger than on the pages of The New York Times, which last week published an editorial that frankly could have been penned by Jacques Delors. For the Times, the break up of the Eurozone, or even the EU itself, would be unthinkable, not least because it would allow individual nation states to reassert their national sovereignty after decades of being told what to do by unelected elites in Brussels.

In the view of the Times:

European leaders have at last begun edging, haltingly and reluctantly, toward the only realistic solution to the continent’s debt and banking crises: refinancing unpayable government debts and reinforcing weakened banks. If their monetary and political union is to survive, all members must start acting more like a union and less like a collection of jealous sovereign states… If things get bad enough, the euro zone could fracture, and that could lead to the fracturing of the entire European Union.

What explains the American Left’s foolhardy love affair with the European Project? As I’ve noted before, President Obama and his administration are firmly committed supporters of political and economic integration in Europe, as are the East Coast liberal elites that back them. There are three key reasons for this approach.

Firstly, Obama and his supporters are quintessentially European in outlook. They share the Big Government mentality of the Eurocrats who have been driving the EU project for decades. They are happy to see the United States adopt European-style policies that emphasise the central role of the state, while increasing regulation of the free market. As Daniel Hannan noted in his excellent pamphlet for Encounter’s Broadside Series, "Why America Must Not Follow Europe", “Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do… In other words, President Obama wants to make the U.S. more like the EU.”

Secondly, American liberals admire the supranational nature of the European Union, the erosion of the power of the nation state, and the pooling of national sovereignty. They believe that unrestrained sovereignty is a dangerous concept, not only within Europe but for the United States too. They actively push for America’s freedom to manoeuvre to be harnessed by the United Nations and a host of international treaties, from the Treaty of Rome (International Criminal Court) to New START and the Law of the Sea. They admire the sacrifice of national sovereignty taking place across Europe, as well as Brussels’ emphasis on deferring to international institutions. For these gilded elites, the projection of American power must be firmly constrained by a liberal internationalism that elevates supranationalism over the national state...MORE...LINK

Yesterday, I attended Rick Perry's press conference at the W Hotel in New York City, where the Texas Governor and Republican presidential frontrunner denounced President Barack Obama for supposedly "appeasing" America's enemies in the Middle East and failing to sufficiently support Israel. The Perry appearance was timed to pre-empt Obama's speech at the UN in which the President would reject Palestinian demands for statehood.

The most remarkable aspect of Perry's press conference was the cast of characters that assembled behind the Governor while he spoke. To Perry's immediate right was Assemblyman Dov Hikind, the former leader of the Jewish Defense League, a terrorist group responsible for bombing attacks on numerous Arab-American targets and a conspiracy to murder Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. While Hikind's collaborator Victor Vancier spent ten years in jail for firebomb attacks, Hikind was suspected by the FBI of numerous terror attacks of his own. After issuing numerous stentorian condemnations of terror, Perry handed the mic over to Hikind, who exclaimed, "I heard the Governor's speeches and I said to myself, 'He sounds like me!'" The two engaged in a sustained hug before a giant media gaggle.

To Perry's left was Dr. Solomon "Joe" Frager, who was listed on official Perry press material as the organizer of the press conference. Frager is the Chairman of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, a front group for the Ateret Cohanim organization that steals Palestinian property in East Jerusalem and hands it over to fanatically religious Jewish families. They are the spearhead of Israel's slow motion ethnic cleansing of Silwan and the Old City. For a glimpse at the zealotry, racism and sheer sleaziness behind Ateret Cohanim's operation, watch Louis Theroux's excellent BBC documentary, "The Ultra-Zionists," which follows Ateret Cohanim's man-on-the-ground Daniel Luria as he personally orchestrates the theft of Palestinian homes.Surrounding Perry was a sundry assortment of Jewish Israeli extremists, from Knesset Deputy Speaker Danny Danon, who advocates annexing the West Bank to punish the Palestinian Authority for pursuing statehood, to Member of Knesset Nissim Zeev, a settler from the Shas Party who has proposed "rehab centers" for homosexuals.None of the reporters I talked to afterwards seemed to know who any of Perry's "pro-Israel" supporters were, and very few even cared. And nothing I have read so far about the event in the mainstream American media noted that it was planned by a key orchestrator of Palestinian home seizures in occupied territory, or that Perry embraced the former leader of a group listed by the FBI as a terrorist organization.

To get a sense of the kind of coverage Perry earned from the mainstream press, read Politico's Ben Smith, who described Perry's speech as "moderate" and "centrist." Meanwhile, the liberal groups that howled in protest when Perry hosted a prayer rally in Houston with Christian right leaders have virtually ignored Perry's embrace of the Jewish extreme right...MORE...LINK